NEW YORK -- About an hour or so before the Celtics went out and drove a stake through the hearts of the Knicks and a wild Madison Square Garden crowd, Paul Pierce moved through the tiny visitors locker room. He stopped for a second when he came upon a couple of players idly chatting with some members of the press. “None of that,” Pierce said. “None of that small talk.”

His tone wasn’t sharp and his words weren’t for show. For Pierce this was business and a game like this is the Celtics calling card. Whether it was ending the stranglehold the Pistons had on the Eastern Conference back in the day or bringing a sudden halt to the LeBron James era in Cleveland, the Celtics have been at their best away from home. They take pride in it, of course, but it’s not something they have been able to explain over the years.

“I don’t know,” Kevin Garnett said. “The, ‘Us against the world mentality,’ could be said. The fact that you know that when you go on the road all you have is each other. For some reason we tend to figure it out and play better.”

For three days that’s all they talked about: playing better. “I just want us to play well,” Doc Rivers said prior to tip-off. “We play well, [then] we’ll see what happens.”

There were strategic things that needed to be worked out and areas of focus and concentration, but the Celtics didn’t need to change all that much. They wouldn’t even if they could. They know the formula and they understand all the things that make them successful, they just needed to do them better.

With the exception of a bevy of turnovers in the first half – and hey, nobody’s perfect – they played about as well as they can play in a 113-96 dismantling of the Knicks, Friday night (Click here for a recap). They are now up 3-0 with a chance to close things out on Sunday. It would be the first Celtics sweep since 1992 when the beat the Pacers in three games.

Finishing things off on Sunday would also allow them to keep pace with the Heat who seem destined for a quick and easy win in their series with the Sixers. The Celtics will need to be at their best, both mentally and physically when they play Miami and the longer they let the Knicks hang around, the greater the potential for trouble became.

More importantly, the Celtics finally played the game they knew they could play and while they’re not done with the Knicks just yet, they removed much of the scary element from this series.

Amar’e Stoudemire is clearly hurting. He gave the Knicks 32 minutes but scored just seven points on 2-for-8 shooting and after the game said, “There is no way I will be 100 percent by Sunday [for Game 4].” Chauncey Billups didn’t play at all and the outlook is not good for the next game either. But this game was really all about the Celtics and the final numbers were staggering:

Pierce scored 14 points in the first quarter en route to 38 on 14-for-19 shooting that included a 6-for-8 performance from 3-point range.

Not to be outdone, fellow ageless gunner Ray Allen made 8-of-11 from long range and finished with 32 points. He is now 15-for-20 from behind the arc in this series, which even for Allen is on another level.

Never forget that as much respect as they have for each other, neither Pierce nor Allen ever wants to be outdone by the other.

“After a while I started feeding off Ray,” Pierce said. “He was making every shot and he was putting pressure on me to make shots. I couldn’t let him down. It was fun to be a part of, just watching him take those shots. It was good to be a part of it and have teammates who can really put on a show.”

Rajon Rondo put on his own unique brand of entertainment. He had 20 assists and seemed to be inventing new moves whenever the spirit moved him. He also played the kind of overall floor game that he used to turn in with frightening regularity earlier in the season. Rondo racked up the assists because Pierce and Allen made almost everything in sight, but he also scored 15 points and had 11 rebounds for his sixth career playoff triple double.

But the number that stood out the most for the Celtics was on the glass. The 13 offensive rebounds were nice, but it was the 30 boards on the defensive glass that were the difference.

“That was the emphasis of the day,” Pierce said. “We’ve got to hit them first. We wanted to put an emphasis on putting bodies on people, boxing out. If we don’t turn the ball over it would have been a perfect game.”

The perfect game has been elusive for this team. They’ve had their moments, but nothing quite like this. It was a vintage performance. The Celtics shot 58 percent in the second half and had assists on 19 of their 25 field goals. Rivers said the pick-setting was maybe the best it’s been all year and Rondo made sure the ball was hopping from one player to the next. Vintage.

“It was a conscious effort to run our offense,” Rivers said. “Paul and Ray were the focus. It wasn’t one or the other. It was both. Rondo had one of those great catcher games. He called a terrific game. When he does that it allows us to run pretty much what we want to run.”
The defense was excellent throughout. One game after torching the Celtics for 42 points, Carmelo Anthony shot 4-for-16 and didn’t make a shot in the second half.

Credit Pierce who has made a second-life reputation for himself over the last four years by taking on the toughest small forwards in the league during the playoffs. Anthony said they doubled more, but really they just played their defense, and again, they played it better.

There was also a stone cold finality that took over the building in the second half. Every time the Knicks made a little run, Pierce or Allen – or both – were there to answer the call.

When the Knicks cut the lead to eight early in the third quarter, Pierce silenced the crowd with a 3-pointer from the top of the key. They trimmed seven points off a 23-point lead early in the fourth, but there was Pierce again, knocking down a jumper.

This was business for him. Pure, cold business and it was very good for the Celtics.